Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	father_n	holy_a	person_n	23,263	5	5.9853	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30701	The believer's groan for heaven in a sermon at the funeral of honourable Sir Richard Hoghton, of Hoghton, baronet / preached at Preston in Amoundernes in Lancashire, Feb. 14, 1677, by Seth Bushell ...	Bushell, Seth, 1621-1684.	1678 (1678)	Wing B6236; ESTC R4461	12,496	34

disallows Then the body shall be wholly governed by the spirit performing spiritual actions employed in spiritual services and in all things suited to the state and condition of heaven which flesh and blood cannot inherit And thus the body at the resurrection being made a spiritual body does denote not only the infirmity but the corruption of our nature done away And in these four respects chiefly it is that the body at the resurrection is stiled an house from heaven Thus we have gone through the latter particular in the Text viz. the motive and object of the Believer's desire to die Now to close up all in a word Let us well consider the many evils and miseries we are liable to Vse and labour under whilst we are here in this present world as also the everlasting rest and blessed eternity that is before us and then we shall see how cogent the reasons are for groaning in this present state We shall groan to be set at liberty from the bonds of evil and groan to come to the enjoyment of the adoption to wit the redemption of the body Let us long for heaven for that is our Countrey our better Countrey whilst here we are not at home but strangers and sojourners as in the wilderness O let the Canaan that is before us take up our thoughts and invigorate our endeavours so as the serious consideration of the certainty and sweetness of the end may facilitate the difficulties of the way and spirit us in our journey In heaven is our Estate there are our Relations where we shall be void of sorrow and pain of lust and sin and have the blessed fruition of God and Christ in everlasting peace and joy Did David so earnestly long after the earthly Temple made with hands so as his soul fainted for the Courts of the Lord Did he so fervently desire communion with God there How much more should we breath after the heavenly Jerusalem to enjoy communion with the general Assembly and Church of the first-born which are written in heaven and with God the Judg of all and with the spirits of just men made perfect We have renounced the world and by our baptismal vow bound our selves heaven-wards Our friends are gone before us and are there expecting us the goodly fellowship of the Prophets the glorious Quire of the Apostles the noble Army of Martyrs the whole race of Believers Let us make hast to them there is the best place the best condition the best company Therefore hasten your work gird up the loins of your mind make full preparation for your journey loosen your hearts from the things of this world and the tedious distractions of concerns below forget the things which are behind and reach forth unto those things which are before and press toward the mark for the price of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus Your full and complete happiness is before you you cannot expect the enjoyment of it here and you are to pass thereto through the gate of death every one of them that appear before God in Sion do pass through the Valley of Baca. Therefore acquaint your selves with death in the nature thereof and ends thereof as to true Christians that so the thoughts thereof may be sweetned to you and by this means you may learn that great and needful lesson of dying daily which once throughly understood and practically improved will not only make death less fearful but truly desirable as being an inlet into your everlasting joy Into the which joy the Lord of his infinite mercy conduct us all Thus I have done with my Text. Now give me leave to add a word or two as to the present occasion and I have done It has pleased Almighty God the wise dispenser of all his providences though many of them dark to us yet all of them evident to and ordered by his allseeing and foreseeing eye by a sudden stroak to make a sad breach in a worthy Family in taking away the chief head thereof a person of great worth and honour of an honorable extraction of a generous disposition and of a courteous kind and affable temper Whose high degree was so seasoned with an humble carriage towards all inferiours as laid upon them a just obligation for true honour and service And that I may give you no other Character of him but what is just and due and becoming this place I may truly tell you and your testimony goes along with me herein that He was free and hospitable in the entertainment of his friends and most pleased with their kind and cheerful visits His comportments at home and abroad were like himself ever bespeaking a generous and worthy mind and suitable to that eminency of interest and repute which upon just accounts he held in his Country 'T was his great and deserved commendations that he was free from those vices though there is no man without Sin which are the grand stains of true honour I meane intemperance debaucheries revellings dissolute practises profligate courses and the like with which these evil times and daies of iniquity do so much abound That he was a profess'd Protestant I need not tell you 'T is well known to those that knew him how real and forward he was that way And his publick receiving the holy Sacrament of the Lord's Supper by my ministration in this place and in this Congregation according to the usage of the Church of England as you can testifie bears witness for him He was a person of many moral virtues and divine graces too That expression of his to a friend of his not long before he died that God accepts of a little grace if true and saving and that none knew what had passed between God and his own Soul in secret argued more than an ordinary stamp of grace upon him which might be evidenc'd in divers particulars were there time convenient for it He had some forethoughts and previous apprehensions of his death approaching or at least that he should not live long which may be hence inferr'd in that not long before the distemper seiz'd him whereof he shortly died and when he seem'd to be well in health as to his bodily state yet then he discours'd of his death and latter end as coming on and of several particulars which he foresaw would be incident thereupon as representing that state to himself in his own thoughts by a previous Survey and so was a proceeding to give divers directions and monitions which the love his dear relations had to him would not suffer them to hear uttered upon such an occasion God sometimes does preimpress the thoughts of his servants with apprehensions of their latter end approaching when there 's little outward appearance for it and yet then it may be near at hand So that such impressions are not to be pass'd by without their due remarks In a word I may truly say that the Country has lost a good Patriot the Gentry an eminent person in their number the poor Neighbourhood a constant and charitable Supporter Friends an hospitable Receiver Kindred an honourable and respective Relation Servants have lost a good Master my self a worthy Patron Children an indulgent Father an honourable and vertuous Lady a dear Consort But though the loss be great in these respects on earth yet the gain is far more exceeding and weighty to him in Heaven Let the consideration hereof quiet our thoughts and compose our spirits in setting the one against the other Now to God the Father God the Son and God the Holy Ghost Three Persons but one everliving and only true God be ascribed and given as meet and due is all Power Praise Honor and Glory Majesty and Dominion henceforth and for ever Amen FINIS

vita morbus est Aug. Therefore in the interim our present state in respect of corporal evils is a burden under which we groan 2. But the burden of spiritual evils is more disquieting and insupportable such are these viz. 1. The burden of our corruptions 2. Of Satan's temptations 3. Of Desertion upon the account of sin 1. The burden of our corruptions which are continually heaving and fermenting within us ever stirring to bring forth fruit unto death The flesh lusting against the Spirit and the law of the members warring against the law of the mind This old man is active and unwearied in his work This makes Believer's groan and cry out wo is me that I dwell in Mesech and have my habitation in the Tents of Kedar And this burden a man labours under all his days So that he only that is dead is free from sin Rom. 6.7 This made the Apostle so grievously bemoan his present state Rom. 7.24 O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of death It 's fitly stiled a body of death as well in respect of it's weight and ponderousness as of it's loathsomeness and annoiance 2. The assaults and temptations of Satan who is ever busie going about seeking whom he may devour Who bestirs himself with the utmost diligence to captivate immortal Souls His winnowings and buffettings his arts and stratagems his subtilties and devices which as a Sophister or Politician he uses to catch us in his snares and to bring us into his Net these are an heavy burden to Believer's and stir up in them as the spirit of watchfulness against his encounters so groaning to be delivered from him 3. Desertions upon the account of sin when God withdraws the light of his Countenance and hides his face that we cannot see him When the joy of the Lord which is the strength of the Soul is removed and darkness yea thick darkness covers then the Soul languisheth under weakness and does utter it's grief by groans in private The spirit of man may support his infirmity but this wounded spirit who can bear And thus the burden of spiritual evils does make believer's groan 2. From St. Paul's Passion express'd in desiring Observe that It is the property nature and duty of true Christians to desire to get rid of this burden by death Death is ommibus finis multis remedium nonnullis votum Therefore we find death in Scripture spoken of promised and bestowed as a blessing All things are yours saith the Apostle 1 Cor. 3.21 And in the enumeration of divers particulars there mentioned death is reckoned up as one and theirs and theirs to advantage Solomon prefers it before the birth day And St. Paul desires to be dissolved as far better Phil. 1.23 And he groans and waits for the redemption of the body Rom. 8.23 and is willing to be absent from the body 2 Cor. 5.8 Though St. Paul be not so much a Standard as a Pattern to Christians being a Star of the first Magnitude in respect of his high assurance and great measure of holiness yet there is no Christian though he comes not nigh to the glory of this example but is bound to long for a better state though he pass thereto through the Valley of the shadow of death For where there is a principal of grace there will be imprinted a propensity towards Heaven 'T is the nature of grace to abstract a person from the world and to produce a tediousness in earthly things and to engrave a new bias in the Soul whereby it is carried towards Heaven as its center and place of rest Devotio est motus mentis in deum Where there is a work of grace there the Soul follows hard after God and longs to appear before him and would break through all obstruction and endeavours the removing of all impediments that lie in its way 'T is the nature of love that it cannot bur desire enjoyment and the more fervent and true it is the more it breaths after a full enjoyment of its Object Where the treasure is there will the heart be also Thus the love of Christ shed abroad in the Soul has a constraining vertue in it and stirs up in true Christians a desire to die But here in reference to this point there are some particulars to be considered as that 1. This desire of death is Spiritual and not Natural not for its own sake but the advantages and consequences of it as it is an out-let from sin and an in-let into happiness Nay nature cannot but abhor a dissolution the principal whereof is self-preservation Thus says our blessed Saviour let this cup pass from me which yet upon other thoughts he presently corrects by a free submission to his Fathers will nevertheless not my will but thine be done His sufferings as the School-men say were against his voluntatem sensualitatis by which we desire life and avoid that which is sad and painful but not against his voluntatem rationalitatis 2. This desire to die must be without impatience and peevishness as Elijah when he was persecuted then O Lord take away my life for I am no better then my Fathers And Jonah when the Gourd failed him and he fainted then he wish'd in himself to die As many do when the world frowns on them and their enjoyments are imbitter'd to them when their hopes are disappointed and their humours cross'd then discontent seizeth their spirits and they would go off in a pet and pass out of the world in a passion as weary of Gods work in either doing or enduring what he calls them to This perverse temper the very Heathens did explode says Seneca Ridiculum est ad mortem currere taedio vitae But now the true Christian desire much be with submission to the Divine Will and Wisdom we are not to stir from our Sentinel nor quit our station till we have our Pass-port and furloe from the General We must wait God's leasure as to our going off There are many things we may desire to have done which we must not do our selves We must not procure or hasten our own death not break the Prison but stay for a legal release Say it is the Lord let him do what seems good unto him 3. This true Christian desire to die may be consistent with some kind of lothness to change For there are several degrees of grace and strength and all men are not equally prepar'd for nor fortified against the King of terrours For 1. Men may desire God to delay their deaths that they may be further serviceable to the Church That was David's design in his Prayer to be spair'd a while till he had shew'd Gods strength to that generation and his power to them that were to come Psal 71.18 The like was St. Paul's case which put him in a strait Phil. 1.23 24. For I am in a strait betwixt two having a desire to depart and to be with Christ which is far